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Comment by lsy | Hacker News Reader

It's weird to hear Foucault described as "amoral" when he himself claimed to be a moralist [1].

What is meant by moral relativism in this case I think is merely that morals do not come to us handed down by God or Nature as Chomsky claims, but are a constant choice made by people over a potentially infinite range. But to assert that the morals don't come from God is not to say that morals are not valuable or worth having.

As Foucault puts it, "What is good, is something that comes through innovation. The good does not exist, like that, in an atemporal sky, with people who would be like the Astrologers of the Good, whose job is to determine what is the favorable nature of the stars. The good is defined by us, it is practiced, it is invented. And this is a collective work."

1. http://www.critical-theory.com/read-me-foucault-interview-in...

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> What is meant by moral relativism in this case I think is merely that morals do not come to us handed down by God or Nature as Chomsky claims, but are a constant choice made by people over a potentially infinite range.

I didn't get the sense he's saying morals are handed down by nature, rather that the potential range is not infinite.

E.g., consider that research where the primate gets angry and starts rejecting its boring food pellets-- and in fact throwing them at its handler (!)-- because the other primate is consistently receiving all the delicious grapes. We humans surely share and exhibit some similar social behavior. That truth doesn't determine exactly how a culture will conceptualize and enforce a sense of morality. But it does mean some theoretical moral systems just won't work in practice. E.g., history hasn't left us with examples of well-fed kings with no king's guards during famines.

So if you're a radical whose theories rely on humans asblank slates on which infinite moral systems may be applied (after the revolution, probably), you're going to have a bad time in the real world.

Digression: I have no idea how this truism fits in with Chomsky's political ideas about anarcho-syndicalism.

But what you are saying is just that the “range” of morality is handed down by nature. And the idea that this range is “naturally” limited is too often used, as it is in your comment, to make an argument from nature’s authority in favor of certain applications of power that may or may not be good for people. What I think relativism does is restore accountability to the individual and the society for moral decisions, rather than appealing to natural or theological authorities to absolve people and institutions of responsibility for their choices.

> But what you are saying is just that the “range” of morality is handed down by nature.

Yes, but for the generous interpretation of what I wrote.

E.g., you can't build a moral system that requires cordoning children off in individual stalls (one child per stall, no direct contact with other humans), feeds and virtually teaches them the rules of the society, then when they reach the age of 18 and pass a test get released into the wild to socialize with other humans for the first time. What we know about child development tells us that this system will be an utter failure.

If you can imagine accepting at least some version of that paragraph as supported by the scientific evidence for how humans socialize, then you agree there are some hard limits on what kind of moral systems humans can thrive under.

If you don't accept there are any limits whatsoever, then you fall into self-contradiction and incoherence which AFAICT is all Chomsky is pointing out.

Edit: clarification. I don't think it's necessary to use the "most generous" interpretation of what I wrote, just a stock generous one.

His shots at Foucault and other philosophers always struck me as being some poorly justified dislike of them. Sometimes, that's all it is deep down.

Lenin claimed to be the most moral because he had just one moral value: the good of the Party.

One can claim to be moral while being amoral, and Lenin is the perfect example.

I don't think Lenin ever made such claims, Marxists generally reject moral justifications of socialism because they view them as idealist.

Well, after raping countless boys in N. Africa and helping introduce HIV in the continent, I'd say he's IMmoral.

EDIT Add citation: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/16/reckoning-with-...

Foucault was working in Tunisia from 1966-1968. HIV is thought to have spread to NYC in '71, and SF in '75 which is where Foucault probably was infected. AIDS was first clinically described in '81, and Foucault died in 1984 from AIDS.

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